Consider This from NPR - Time Is Running Short For The U.S. Evacuation Effort In Afghanistan

Episode Date: August 24, 2021

The Biden administration said Tuesday that the U.S. was on pace to meet an August 31 deadline to fully withdraw from Afghanistan, but that "contingency plans" are being developed in case they do not complete evacuations in time. Some Afghan evacuees will wind up in America, where one of their main destinations is the Seattle area. NPR's Martin Kaste reports on the resettlement effort ramping up there. President Biden made the decision not to extend evacuations despite calls to do so from some members of his own party. NPR's Asma Khalid examines what Biden's decisions on Afghanistan reveal about his view of America's role in the world. In participating regions, you'll also hear a local news segment that will help you make sense of what's going on in your community.Email us at [e-mail] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

August 31st. That's the deadline the U.S. agreed to with the Taliban to be fully out of Afghanistan. For evacuations from Kabul to be complete. I think it's possible, but I think it's very unlikely. On Monday, House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff and other lawmakers received a classified briefing on the situation in Afghanistan. Afterwards, the California Democrat told reporters there were probably too many people to evacuate by the deadline. Too many Americans, too many Afghans trying to get special immigrant visas, too many others who would be threatened by the Taliban if they stayed. And I'm certainly of the view that we maintain a military presence as long as it's necessary to get all U.S. persons out and to meet our moral and ethical obligation to our Afghan partners.

Any American who wants to come home, we will get you home. That was President Biden last week. As of Tuesday afternoon, according to the White House, the U.S. is on pace to complete operations by August 31st. They're also making contingency plans in case that doesn't happen. Speaking last week, Biden said the evacuations being carried out were dangerous and their success isn't guaranteed for everyone. I cannot promise what the final outcome will be or what it will be, that it will be without risk of loss. But as commander in chief, I can assure you that I will mobilize every resource necessary. Consider this. More than a week after Afghanistan fell to the Taliban, the U.S. and its allies are still scrambling to get as many people out as quickly as possible.

And they're running out of time. From NPR, I'm Adi Cornish. It's Tuesday, August 24th. This message comes from NPR sponsor, Audible. Chasing Ghislaine is a new investigative podcast series from executive producer James Patterson and hosted by veteran journalist Vicki Ward, who has been covering the Jeffrey

Epstein saga for nearly 20 years. Epstein's story intertwines with the disgraced heiress Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein's ex-lover, former employee, and alleged co-conspirator. Chasing Ghislaine is available exclusively on Audible. To start listening, go to audible.com slash chasing. This message comes from WISE, the app for doing things in other currencies. Send, spend, or receive money internationally, and always get the real-time mid-market exchange rate with no hidden fees. Download the WISE app today or visit wise.com. T's and C's apply. Maddie Safaya here, host of Shortwave, the daily science podcast from NPR. Listen for new discoveries, everyday mysteries, and the science behind the headlines, all in about 10 minutes every weekday.

It's a great addition to your daily listening, whether you're a science nerd or, you know, just a little science curious. Subscribe now to Shortwave from NPR. It's Consider This from NPR. We should say there's nothing special about August 31st. It's just the deadline that President Joe Biden set, and the Taliban is holding him to it. Are there any circumstances under which you would agree to extending that date? At a Taliban press conference Tuesday, with a translation aired on the BBC, a spokesman said they would not agree to any extension

and that they're beginning to restrict access to the Kabul airport for Afghans. We want them to evacuate all foreign nationals by the 31st of August. And we are not in favor of allowing Afghans to leave. But in the days before that press conference, many did leave, and fast. On Tuesday, the White House said in a single 24-hour period from Monday to Tuesday, more than 21,000 people were evacuated. And that was a combination of Americans, Afghans, and others traveling on U.S. and coalition aircraft. Still, there are consequences to moving fast. Video published over the weekend by the Washington Post shows a crowded airport

hangar in Doha, where many Afghan evacuees have been sent. The man recording the video and one other describe dirty conditions, intense heat, two-hour waits to use the bathroom, crowds so thick that they have to step over people sleeping on the floor. Look at this crowd, one of the men says. And there are more coming. On Tuesday, the Biden administration said it was aware of, quote, very challenging conditions at the airbase and working to improve them. In Doha, Afghan evacuees are undergoing security and health screenings. After that, they'll be transported to other countries, including the U.S., where resettlement agencies are scrambling to prepare.

NPR's Martin Kasi reports on that effort in the Seattle area. It's one of the main destinations for Afghan evacuees. The government contracts out the work of resettling refugees to non-profits, many of them with religious ties. One example is World Relief, whose Seattle director is Chitra Hanstead. It's what I call beautiful chaos, because we have the joyous job of welcoming folks. She says her office used to welcome about 19 people to the Seattle area per month. Now they can see that many arrivals in one day. Complicating matters is the fact that her agency is understaffed after the slower pace of

arrivals during the Trump years. They're now rushing to hire more staff and to find volunteers with logistics experience. Hansen says retired military people could be especially helpful. And of course, they need to find homes. Even on my street, I've got my neighbor mobilizing my street to find extra bedrooms and mother-in-law units and things like that. Another one of her neighbors happens by and assures her that he's thinking about it. In the meantime, World Relief and other agencies rely heavily on churches. In the Bible, you find all these commandments and requirements from God to take care of the foreigner, the immigrant. So we really believe in that. Kenneth Martinez moved here from

Mexico 10 years ago to work for Microsoft. He and his wife, Adriana Suarez, live in the suburbs on a Spielberg-esque cul-de-sac, and now they have a newly arrived Afghan family in their spare bedroom. There's a mother, father, two little kids, and a baby on the way. Speaking out on the back deck to avoid disturbing her guests, Suarez says as an immigrant she can imagine the family's culture shock. They were asking for Afghan food, so I'm pretty sure that they're trying to find food to feel like they're at home, especially for their kids. She says all the family found to buy at their local supermarket was bread,

but they did find a local Afghan restaurant for their first day. The agency says these cultural problems can get better once the refugees connect with other Afghans who live in the area. Also, refugees tend to be in a hurry to get out and find a job. The real problem, though, especially in a place like Seattle, is housing. Ali arrived in Seattle just a few days ago. From Kabul, we went to Qatar just for a few hours, then from Qatar to Washington, D.C., and from Washington, D.C., here. He worked with the U.S. military and fears Taliban retaliation against his relatives back home, so we're using only his first name. Just yesterday, Ali, his wife, and their toddler moved into a tiny

post-war house in Seattle's Ballard neighborhood, a house that volunteers have spruced up with new paint and furniture. Welcome. Thank you very much. I love you. Thank you. Yeah. The volunteers included picture books and a rocking horse for the baby, but the boy's eyes go straight to the rubber ball. He had the same in Kabul, but yeah, we left it.

Wow. This house is scheduled to be torn down next spring to make way for new apartments. But until then, the developer, F.A. Johnson, says the little house can be a free landing place for arriving Afghans while they search for more permanent homes. It's a help, but it's not nearly enough, given the wave of people who are on their way. That's NPR's Martin Kosty. Now, the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan was set in motion by former President Trump. President Biden's decision to stick with that plan, and at least for now to stick with the deadline to carry it out, well, it reveals a lot about how he views America's role in the world. And for more on that, we're going to hear from NPR political correspondent Asma Khalid.

In January 2002, when the U.S. Embassy in Kabul reopened, Ambassador Ryan Crocker says the first member of Congress to visit him was then-Senator Joe Biden. One of his really great qualities, I thought, was his driving need to see things for himself. Crocker says Biden did the same in Iraq. And I just, I really respected that. So what have they done with the real Joe Biden? And who is this guy up there now? Crocker had thought the president was an old school internationalist in the vein of presidents going back to World War II, who believed in American leadership on the global stage. But with the chaos in Afghanistan, he can't seem to make sense of him.

For me, there are kind of two sets of issues here. One of them is what his international philosophy actually is. The other is, quite frankly, an issue of competence. And I find both alarming. Much of Biden's foreign policy is rooted in his years of firsthand experience. And that's why the withdrawal from Afghanistan has raised so many questions. Leon Panetta was director of the CIA under President Obama. He has publicly referred to this as a Bay of Pigs moment for Biden. The issue that concerns me is that when the president does want to make a decision, that you want to be able to implement that decision in the right way, which means that you have to look at all of the contingencies. You have to look at all the possibilities that could develop.

And in this case, it's not clear to him the president did. Panetta has sat in the Situation Room with Biden. He's seen him deal with crises. He's someone who feels that he's had a great deal of experience in dealing with the world. I think he does have a deep sense of confidence in his views. And one question is how much Biden trusts his own instincts over everyone else's. But the president's worldview isn't just about policy. It's also about style.

He said that all foreign policy can be boiled down to personal relationships. Richard Fontaine was a foreign policy advisor to GOP Senator John McCain. When the president spoke about Afghanistan, he mentioned that Ashraf Ghani, the now former president, had assured him certain things would happen. They obviously did not. U.S. presidents often, I believe, put too much stock in their ability to sway a foreign leader solely through force of personality and things like that, because countries have these things called national interests.

Fontaine says that's not entirely unique to Biden. The bigger thing he's noticed is that the president, who once supported intervention on humanitarian grounds in the Balkans, in Iraq, and even to some degree in Afghanistan, has changed his tune. Nowadays, Biden speaks about the most important global struggle as a battle between autocracies and democracies. And Afghanistan is not part of that equation. He's focused on China. His team often refers to this idea of creating a foreign policy for the middle class, a response to President Trump, but also progressives within his own party. Matt Dust is a foreign policy advisor

to Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. I think there's a recognition that so much of the way that foreign policy was talked about and made in Washington had become completely detached from the kind of lived experiences of Americans. And so Biden, like Trump, made a commitment to end the forever wars. It meant pulling back in some places, even as Biden promised to re-engage with the world. And that sends a risky message to some. If you withdraw from the world stage because we're going to fix the home problem and ignore the rest, then the world is going to be a very, very dangerous place. General Jim Jones served as Obama's national security advisor.

For the last half of the 20th century, we figured out how to do it both ways. But Biden seems to be making the calculation that in the 21st century, Americans want to see nation building at home, not overseas. NPR political correspondent Asma Khalid. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Adi Cornish.